To me new year's resolutions are more a list of things I want to do in the coming year than attempts at lifestyle change. Some years I've made them on my birthday others on January 1st. I love making lists so really it's more an excuse to make a great, big list of activities and wishes.
New Years Resolution #3: learn to shuck oysters
Since the very first one it was love at first slurp. There was something about their salty-sea, creamy-sweetness that was just so lovely. For years I tried eating oysters whenever possible and often thought how wonderful it would be to have a dozen every day for lunch. That is, until the time I got horribly sick after eating just six during a spring-break trip to London my junior year in college. After that I didn't touch them for years. Then I was taken to Nobu on my 28th birthday. Nobu. Omakase. Oysters. Enough said. The flames in my heart were fanned once again.
Last year after a particularly delicious afternoon with Fig at
The Hungry Cat I decided I needed to learn how to shuck my expensive habit. My only attempt, when I was 22, had been a complete disaster. Four oysters, bought at Dean & Deluca on my art school budget, to go with a bottle of champagne that my dearest friend, Karenin, had given me on my birthday. After taking first a screwdriver and then a hammer to them I abandoned the oysters in the kitchen sink and opened the champagne. In one last wishful, futile attempt I came back to the kitchen, half way through the bubbly, and banged the oysters against the floor.
Yesterday, I learned that opening oysters is actually a lot easier than that experience. What I didn't know then but know now is that banging the oysters will make them shut tight. Instead of trying to crack them open I should have scrubbed them clean with a brush. Then one by one, held steady and flat side up with a kitchen towel, taken an oyster knife on a diagonal at their hinge. Turning the knife like a key until the shells popped open. Now thanks to Corina, the chef and one of the owners of the
restaurant where I work, I know.
In what can only be described as oyster heaven I stood with Corina in her brother's beautiful sunny kitchen shucking close to two-hundred oysters with two other friends. Passing out dozens in ice filled plates with a mignonette made of shallots, pepper, and prosecco at a rowdy pool party .
It was so simple and the best part, eating breaks.
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